#G4C2021 Day 1 Wrap Up! 🎮

Amazing sessions, the G4C Awards, and so much more! Check out some highlights and what to expect on Day 2. 

Tonight we celebrated the best social impact games and immersive experiences over the past year at the 2021 Games for Change Awards with the help of Keisha Howard and Mega Ran. Congratulations to all of our winners, including the recipients of the Vanguard Award, Industry Leadership Award, and the G4C Giving Award.  Game of the Year, Most Significant Impact - Alba: A Wildlife Adventure (ustwo games) Most Innovative, Best Gameplay- Lost Words: Beyond the Page (Sketchbook Games) Best Learning Game - The Wednesday (GamBridzy) Best XR for Change Experience - Quadcade (MICA Game Lab) Best Student Game - SYNDESI (SYNDESI Team, Produced by Léa Pernot & Adrien Daugy of ISART DIGITAL) G4C People's Choice Award-  Suzerain (Torpor Games) Vanguard Award - Mark Barlet, AbleGamers G4C Giving Award- Games Done Quick Industry Leadership Award- Niantic Learn more about the finalists and winners on the 2021 Festival Website and play some of the current and past G4C Award games through the G4C Steam sale!  Today, Raising Good Gamers unveiled a PSA in partnership with Cartoon Network to support their award-winning pro-social initiative, Stop Bullying: Speak Up. Check out the PSA and new resources for kids and grownups! We also announced the introduction of a new G4C Global Chapter: G4C Africa. The Chapter will join the global network, including G4C Europe and G4C Latin America. We are thrilled to grow the Games for Change family and highlight games and immersive media that have a meaningful impact worldwide. We hope you all had a chance to connect with some fellow participants across the globe during day 1 of #G4C2021! Tomorrow we will have a dedicated Speed Networking meeting from 1 - 2 PM ET. Simply click the NETWORKING area from the main menu to be paired with another Festival participant for one-on-one video chats.  Tomorrow we also have some great Meet the Funder sessions happening. Get your questions answered by the people who are helping hundreds of creators bring their social impact games and immersive experiences to life. 11:00 AM - Meet the Funder:  Ed Metz (Dept. of Education)  12:30 PM - Meet the Funder: Diane Hickey (NSF) 2:30 PM - Meet the Funder: Amanda Sweaton (Epic Games)  4:30 PM - Meet the Funder: Rhonda Moore and David Miller (NIH) STEAM, and Video Games: Shaping How We Live, Work and Play (11:00 am -11:45 am ET) Stan Pierre-Louis, Laila Shabir, Chris Rush   Explore the impact of STEAM on education, culture, and entertainment and how this integrated approach provides opportunities for young people from diverse backgrounds to gain access to skills and new jobs that ultimately help shape the world today.   One Billion Guns vs. One Billion Nucleotides (1:30 pm - 2:20 pm ET) Randy Pitchford, Rob Knight, Jerome Waldispuhl, Attila Szantner In 2020 Gearbox, MMOS, McGill University, and the Microsetta Initiative launched a citizen science collaboration in genetics research of the human microbiome. Our consortium built a minigame inside Borderlands 3. On launch day, players submitted over 5 million solutions to DNA sequence alignment puzzles. Explore how a science problem was converted into an engaging and fun game played by millions of players worldwide. XR Brain Jam Showcase (3:30 - 4:20 pm ET) Dave Culyba, Samir Ghosh,  Joanna Liu, Stefania Maggi, Sounak Ghosh, Veronica Weser Join us for a showcase of some of the collaborations from the 2021 XR Brain Jam. This unique yearly event pairs researchers and XR creators together and charges them to explore the intersection of their disciplines. Over several days, participants build experimental prototypes to push the boundaries of XR applications in areas spanning healthcare, education, climate, and more.  Expanding Educational Programs with G4C Learn (4:30 pm -5:20 pm ET) Susanna Pollack, Dalton Gray, Arana Shapiro, Tania Hack, Marissa Harts Building off the success of our flagship learning program, the G4C Student Challenge, and professional development programs for museum educators and teachers, G4C is launching a new initiative, G4C Learn. Join members of the Games for Change team to hear about our work using games and game design to support deep learning across a broad range of programming. Raising Good Gamers: TED-Ed Student Talks Program  (6:20 pm -7:20 pm ET) DJ Moreau, Jayda Washington-Boothe, Jayda Murray, Marzuq Mazid, Noel Ullom, Johnathan Sherrill • Kevin Connors • Bobby Nweke RGG joined forces with TED-Ed to offer 30 high school students an opportunity to participate in the TED-Ed Student Talks program. Check out these youth voices and emerging leaders who have now experienced programming from the TED-Ed Student Talks program, designed to spark and celebrate the ideas and knowledge-sharing of students around the world. View the Full Day 2 Schedule! Copyright © 2021 Games for Change, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in at our website www.gamesforchange.org or gamesforchange.org/festival/ You can opt out of this newsletter at any time. Our mailing address is: Games for Change P.O. Box 770699 Woodsite, New York 11377 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.